We're Moving To

Corvallis, Oregon! Just for those of you that missed it:) Read the revised edition here.

Pinterest Gone Wrong

I have always thought our curtains in this house were ugly, so when I saw the idea to paint stripes on your curtains I was sold. They looked so good on pinterest. This pic is the beginning of the end. Two stripes are on the bottom where I had started.

It was a lot harder than it looked, or than I envisioned it, but I perservered. Here they are:

SOOOOOOO ugly. worse in real life. Before I started my uncarefully thought out project I glanced at curtains and thought I could get a good set for $15 if the project went south. The project did go south, but you can't get curtains for that price, so these are the UGLIER new curtains I got:

Serves me right. But they aren't coming with us, so I'm not too worried. Is that so wrong?

This picture is one of those things that I have always been so annoyed with. Until tonight. I realized how cute it is.

Macey loves pads of paper and she will draw little scribbles like this. On all 100 pages. Each one has its own unique little doodle.

I used to get new pads but she does it on all of them so I have started writing over it. This time I paused to take a picture of her artwork before I wrote my shopping list down.

Tonight for family home evening we talked about conference coming up. Cody's teacher sent him home with a cute little conference packet. Cody was so excited about it that he wanted to do something tonight so he drew the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson:

Then gave him a suit:

This is me:

Then he realized I needed arms:

Another person (not sure who this was):

Love it.

Here's Macey in her goggles. I'm not capable of taking non-blurry pictures. Her teacher is so cute with her but Macey has perservered in her dislike of swimming lessons. Today she sat on the side very content and her teacher just let her until she was ready to get in. She's getting smart. Only one more class. Macey is actually very good about going even though she doesn't love them, she hasn't complained about going once.

These guys love their daddy. He was gone last week for an interview in Washington and they just swarm around him when he's home.

Prayers to El Paso and never say never

We've naturally said a lot of prayers regarding Ben finding a job. Several weeks ago Ben mentioned maybe I should come to El Paso since it was a possible job offer and I might want to see where we might live. Although I didn't think the position sounded like a fit for us, I kept praying and kept feeling like I should just go.

The day before we left Ben got a call offering him a fellowship at Oregon State University. He told me, and I laughed out loud. What were the chances?! How flattering but ironic, since we didn't want it. I even remembered a conversation Ben and I had last year when a girl at Washington State got a fellowship there. I snidely told Ben she wasn't very smart and said "You would never do that, would you?" Definitely not.

Once in El Paso we both realized the position wasn't exactly what we were looking for. However, Dr. Jensen and his wife left a lasting impression on me. They told me frankly that Paul, her husband, had never been happy doing what he did before he went back - after 6 years of working as a vet - to do a residency. 

On the long drive back home we had a lot of time to discuss what we learned and thought. So really, one of the biggest blessings of going to El Paso was to prepare me for where we were going next...to OREGON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A quick search through wikipedia showed the county is the least religious in the country. Sad, since I have loved living in the deeply religious bible belt. Wikipedia's "rankings and recognition" showed Corvallis having multiple mentions involving 'good school systems' and 'safe place to live,' which is important to me. But my personal favorite ranking in 2011: "The American city with the lowest risk of natural disaster." SOLD! Although we are moving there, so they better watch out.:)

made in...

Cody has a bunch of toy planes that have the name of them on the bottom. He always asks me to read the small writing on the bottom in case it has the name of it. Most other toys just say "Made in" wherever they are made. I guess we need to start buying more American made things because the other day we made an art project and Cody looked at the finished product and asked "Is this made in China?"

The Road to El Paso

We had the opportunity to go to El Paso for a job interview for Ben this weekend. While Cody and Macey stayed with a friend this was still a trip, not a vacation, since driving with a baby for 12 hours is not fun. I would rather sit in solitary confinement for 12 hours. That actually sounds nice.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I had with Ben which is the most one on one time I've had with him since......maybe a few years?

I started documenting our drive. Maybe because I had time. We passed through Shamrock, TX which was fitting since it was St. Patrick's day this weekend.

This is some of the scenery along the way:)

More of that

It's pretty flat! It actually does not look like this in Oklahoma City area; there are a lot more rolling hills, trees, civilization and people.

I had to take a picture of Pullman road, just because, but I also loved the sign behind it - the " Jesus Christ is Lord Travel Center". We are still definitely in the bible belt.

About the time we reached Amarillo we were ready to make a stop. I immediately started looking for a McDonald's sign with a playplace, then realized we didn't have to go there!!!! I asked Ben where one would go one a road trip without little kids when we passed this by:

And that's where we went! First horse registered with AQHA:

Roping

Entrance to the museum:

the foyer, which was beautiful:

Ben was in heaven. This was the perfect stop.

I got bored of taking pictures and Mackayla got bored in general so that's all in terms of road pics, but this is what greeted us as we entered El Paso...a huge star on the hill lit up.

The next day Ben worked with the surgeon all day and I got a tour of the city. It's Huge. We also stopped in to see what the doctors were doing. I have never actually seen a surgery in progress so this was cool to see. The horse is under general anesthesia and is getting his leg scoped (the computer screen showing what's going on is just cut off above them).

Right outside of where that was going on is a breeding facility. Tons and tons of moms and babies were out enjoying the sun.

After I had a tour of the town I went exploring on my own. I love the architecture of the buildings down there:

This is downtown El Paso, which connects straight into Juarez in Mexico. I wasn't too worried about getting lost or ending up in Mexico since I had a pretty good idea of where the freeway was. However, after I came back, I learned that you can just drive into Mexico, but you can't just drive right out! I was fine though.

About this time my camera died. I was so sad, because there were so many other things I wanted to take pictures of. This town, while I don't imagine is a huge vacation destination, was so fun to see. I'm SOOOO glad we went - - which is a whole other post that will be coming in a little bit.

Randomness and 7 Months

This little girl is seven months old yesterday.

Still sweet as ever. Getting Very busy.

Loves food. Finally sleeps in her crib, not her upright sleeper.

Loves Cody and Macey. Really Loves them.

Always holds her arms out like that.

No teeth yet. 12 month clothes. Chubby rolls all over. Not interested in crawling.

While she can roll, she doesn't since she never ever lays on her back, except to sleep - and never moves then.

Before church:

Soccer season is starting! Macey's game was cancelled due to rain, but we will see how she likes it! Cody loves it and once he figured out how it all worked he was pretty excited.

All the chaos was a little overwhelming at first. Nothing like diving into your first game!

This is them gearing up for their first practice:

We never made it because the battery died in our car!

Ben had worked well over 20 hours, and was going to come home and jump it but didn't get home until 3 am and left at 6. Yikes! I tried to jump it with our stick shift car and just ended up bouncing all over the road...we didn't go to practice, but the kids got great practice in the yard waiting to go!

I weed wack our yard. Ben mentioned we should maybe have our lawn sprayed for weeds and I reminded him that our lawn IS weeds, so we would have nothing left. I actually like weed wacking.

She's going to be a good little cheerleader with her mom at soccer games:)